Your Secret's Safe With Me Page 18

  Nick denied anything was going on when I interrogated him. I didn’t believe him. My self-esteem was at an all-time low. It always was when I was around Saskia. How could he fail to be attracted to that tall, leggy blonde when I was a plain brunette struggling to fit into her size 12 wedding dress? Saskia had perfect teeth, perfect hair, those perfect legs.

  I had no hard evidence to back up my suspicions, but the worm grew. A couple of times I caught a waft of Saskia’s distinctive perfume Eau de la Caribe on Nick’s clothes. She used to smother herself in it at school – a distinctive, sickly smell of coconut. Naturally, Nick could never talk to me about what he got up to at work, where he’d been when he’d been on a job all night. In the two-week run-up to the wedding, Saskia stopped coming to the flat. It was guilt. She couldn’t look me in the eye. It had happened before with boys at school. This wasn’t the sixth form. This was real life and she had got hold of my man.

  I threw the accusations at Nick. He denied everything. I wanted to believe him, I tried to keep faith. As tradition dictates, we’d agreed to spend the night before our wedding apart. I returned to Pearl in Battersea, Nick stayed on at the flat. Once I reached Battersea, I remembered I’d left the gifts I’d bought for my bridesmaids in our bedroom, so I popped back to pick them up. He wasn’t there. Of course, he could have been having a last-minute drink with friends or entertaining his family who had come down from the north to stay in London. There were all sorts of reasons why he wasn’t at the flat, but I could only think of one.

  I had walked up the aisle, debating with every step what I would do when I reached the altar, Pearl’s words of wisdom re-playing on a loop. I almost did it. I almost went through with it, with Saskia breathing down my neck in her hastily-stitched dress and the smell of her perfume lingering in the air. I would do as my mother said. I would forgive him. When I looked into the face of the man I loved, I would know he loved me and I would forgive him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Becca,’ he said. ‘I can’t do this. I can’t go through with the wedding.’

  I stared at him, his words slicing through my heart, shattering my dreams into zillions of tiny pieces. He shook his head, pitiful and pathetic.

  He was sorry? Indignant rage consumed me. He could humiliate me with my best friend in private, but there was no way I was going to let him humiliate me in front of all these people. This was my day, my wedding, and I was the only one who could call it off. Yes, he would be sorry.

  I’d squeezed myself into the Jenny Packham wedding dress Pearl had chosen. I’d posed outside the church for the arrival photographs she had demanded. I’d carried the bouquet, handpicked that morning at Columbia Road flower market, and I’d smiled at the guests she had invited. But there the pantomime had to end. My mother’s guests could still enjoy the wedding banquet, Pearl could drown her sorrows in the gallons of pink champagne, but there would be no blushing bride sat at the top table.

  ‘You bastard,’ I hissed, ‘you lying, cheating bastard. All these weeks you’ve been screwing my best friend, pretending nothing was happening. You’re too bloody right this wedding is off. You are the lowest of the low. You’re scum, Nick Quinlan, and I’m glad to be rid of you.’

  I thrust my bouquet into Saskia’s hands with a vehement, ‘He’s all yours.’

  I had subsequently ignored his phone calls. His letters went unanswered. I’d had fifteen years to get over Nick and move on, but the truth was I hadn’t found another man who had come anywhere close to mending my broken heart.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I didn’t want to lose Nick again. I didn’t want to stay away from the quiz. I wanted to see more of him, not less. I thought we had recaptured something – the old spark, but with a new understanding. It didn’t seem fair that I was once again lurching into an intolerable position of not knowing where I stood.

  I spent the next couple of days keeping out of everyone’s way, ensconced in the stable block. The weather had set in dull and damp again, a fine white mist of drizzle hung over the river. Pearl called in with Pippa, mainly to show off Pippa’s new raincoat – she and Pearl had acquired matching tartan waterproofs for their walks around the grounds. Personally, I thought they were both hideous, although I assured Pearl that she and Pippa looked very distinguished. The second time, she called in with Ivy.

  ‘Just giving Ruby a break,’ she said, ‘the girl looks exhausted. Do you think we should her contact her mother, arrange some sort of meeting?’

  The thought had crossed my mind. ‘It’s tempting,’ I agreed, ‘but she and Freddy are adults. Maybe just try talking to her again, see if we can convince her to speak to her mum?’

  ‘She doesn’t seem to want to talk to me,’ Pearl said a little sadly. ‘I have tried. Why don’t you go over and have a chat with her, Becca? You are so much better at these things than me.’

  I was determined not to interfere. ‘I honestly think that it’s best to just let her and Freddy sort this out,’ I said.

  Pearl sighed. ‘I know you’re right. I suppose we shall have to include Ruby in the seating plan for the wedding now. Should she sit with Fred?’ She gave Ivy an extra squeeze. ‘As for you, little lady, you can be my flower girl. I’ll ask Vera if she can run something up. How much will she grow, do you think, in the next couple of weeks?’

  I suspected that Ivy would grow a lot, if she continued to guzzle back her milk at the current rate of knots.

  ‘Have you been to see Norah Morland yet?’ I asked.

  ‘I think we’re going tomorrow,’ Pearl replied with a grimace. ‘Fancy coming, too, for moral support?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind meeting her actually,’ I said. ‘Just out of curiosity.’

  Pearl settled onto the sofa as if she had no intention of leaving. Any hope of completing a day’s work was lost. Princess Pippadee showed her disapproval of being ignored in favour of baby Ivy, by promptly weeing on the floor.

  ‘Oh, naughty girl, Pippadee. Look what you’ve done to poor Becca’s carpet,’ Pearl chided.

  ‘You’ve got to tell her off more firmly than that,’ I said, fetching the kitchen roll.

  ‘Heather has bought some marvellous stuff,’ Pearl replied. ‘It’s a magic carpet cleaner and deodoriser. It’s very good. Hop over to the house and borrow it.’

  ‘Is Pippa weeing all over the place?’ I asked concerned. ‘I thought she was supposed to be house-trained.’

  ‘Oh, she is, darling, but we all have little accidents, don’t we? Every now and again.’

  ‘Speak for yourself. I certainly don’t.’ I soaked up the worst of the wee. Pippa started scratching at the door to go out. ‘Now what does she want? Don’t tell me she’s going to do a number two?’

  ‘Quite possibly,’ Pearl admitted. ‘Can you take her out for a few minutes while I stay here with Ivy?’

  The light drizzle had increased to a heavy sheet of rain. Pippa was off down the steps in an instant.

  ‘Go follow her,’ Pearl yelled in a panic, ‘she’s never been outside off the lead. Take my coat.’

  ‘It won’t fit me,’ I protested.

  ‘Yes, it will,’ Pearl replied, thrusting the hideous garment towards me. She was almost in hysterics. ‘It’s enormous. There’s room for two of me.’

  ‘Thanks a bunch, Mum,’ I retorted, struggling into the coat.

  She looked slightly taken aback, then smiled almost shyly before flapping me away. ‘Go on, go and rescue Pippa.’

  I dashed after Pippa. By the time I reached the flower beds, she was no longer fluffy and white, but bedraggled and muddy. I scooped her under my arm, only to see a figure approaching across the lawn, heading for the house. I recognised the shuffling gait of Gerry Kimble.

  ‘Hello, Mr Kimble,’ I shouted, waving to attract his attention. ‘What are you doing here?’

  He had come from the direction of the riverside gate and I wondered how he had got in. I highly doubted he would have been given access to the code.

  ‘I’m looking for Robsha
w,’ he grunted. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘We met at Chapman’s Wharf the other day,’ I reminded him. ‘My name is Becca.’

  ‘Is he in?’ the old man asked.

  ‘Are you looking for Jack senior or his son?’

  ‘Jack senior, of course.’

  Jack was usually attacking his crossword puzzle in the drawing room at this time of the morning.

  ‘Follow me,’ I said. I could hardly leave Gerry outside in the rain, and in any case, I had to return Pippa to Pearl.

  Pearl regarded the puppy and Gerry Kimble with equal distaste. ‘You might as well carry Pippa back to the house for me,’ she said, refusing to lift the quivering dog out of my arms. ‘You’re all dirty anyway. Look at the mess you’ve made of my coat. Take her straight to the kitchen door. Heather can hose her down in the boot room.’ Her expression suggested she would like to prescribe the same treatment for Gerry Kimble.

  The kitchen door seemed the most appropriate entry point for all of us. Nev was instructed to find Jack while Heather took charge of the puppy. Gerry refused to be relieved of his heavy overcoat.

  ‘I ain’t planning on stopping long,’ he grunted.

  ‘But you are dripping all over my floor,’ Pearl pointed out, refusing to take no for an answer. Beneath his great coat, Gerry wore a knitted jumper and a pair of loose baggy shorts. Pearl raised her eyes to the heavens and said she needed a coffee. I offered to make one for her as Heather was on puppy-cleaning duties. Gerry requested a tea.

  When Jack appeared, he suggested Gerry accompany him into the study. I received the impression Gerry might have been a regular visitor.

  I made Gerry’s tea and a coffee for Jack but hesitated outside the study door. The two men were having a heated argument.

  ‘You won’t find it, Kimble, I’ve looked. Looked and bloody looked. It’s not here.’

  ‘She must have kept a copy. She wouldn’t have thrown it away.’

  ‘Well, she obviously did.’

  ‘So why don’t you stick up for me then? You know darn well that mooring is mine and you know why it was given to me.’

  I knocked on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ Jack snapped.

  The study was in chaos. Gerry was pulling box files off the shelves while Jack watched helplessly from his chair.

  ‘Tea,’ I said, smiling brightly.

  ‘You,’ Gerry said, slamming a box file onto the pile already on the desk. ‘You his secretary or something? You can help us look.’

  ‘I’m not actually Jack’s secretary,’ I informed him, ‘and as I don’t know what you are looking for, I couldn’t possibly help you.’

  ‘Gerry is looking for the paperwork which he says gives him a lifetime right to his mooring. He insists it is here somewhere, despite me telling him repeatedly that it is not.’ Jack’s voice was tight, as if he was trying very hard to control his temper.

  ‘Gerry, why don’t you just sit down for a minute and have your tea?’ I said, attempting to bring some calm to the situation. ‘What year did you get given these rights? We need to look at this rationally.’

  ‘I don’t think we need to look at this at all,’ Jack said.

  ‘Ray Dimmock gave me the rights,’ Gerry said, slumping into a chair. ‘But Mary made it legal. She got a solicitor to draw up the paperwork.’

  ‘Okay, so what solicitor? I’m sure he’d have kept a copy of the paperwork.’ I glanced at Jack. Surely Jack would have looked into this option already?

  ‘Ray Dimmock always used a firm called Kearney and Co in Portdeane,’ Jack said, confirming my theory. ‘They’re not there any more. Haven’t been for years. I use Fletchers in Winchester for the business, and they have no records of any document giving Mr Kimble here his divine rights.’

  ‘Mary may have used someone else,’ I suggested. ‘Can you remember, Gerry?’

  The old man shook his head.

  ‘If you wish to help Mr Kimble by contacting every solicitor in the region and asking if they remember drawing up a legal document between him and my wife in the last fifty years or so, you are more than welcome to do so, Rebecca,’ Jack said. His face had lost all signs of its usual congeniality. ‘Now, I think that has answered our questions for today. Thank you for the refreshments, Rebecca, but our guest is not stopping.’

  ‘Yes, of course, Jack, sorry,’ I said, backing out of the room. ‘Come on, Gerry, I’ll fetch your coat.’

  Gerry staggered to his feet. ‘I’ll tell ’im,’ he said, leaning across the desk towards Jack, spittle dribbling down his chin. ‘Is that what you want, Robshaw? You turn me off my mooring and I’ll tell that boy of yours the truth about his rotten family. Every single little truth.’

  ‘Get out of my house, Kimble,’ Jack roared. ‘Get out!’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ‘Goodness me,’ Pearl exclaimed, ‘what was all that about?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ I admitted, easing Gerry into a kitchen chair so that he could finish off his tea. I didn’t want to worry Pearl with an account of the scene in the study, and Gerry appeared equally as tight-lipped. Pearl watched him like a hawk while Heather nursed Ivy with a look of distinct disapproval. I could almost hear her complaints about another three mouths to feed – the puppy, the baby, and Ruby, who ate the least of all three.

  It was quite clear that Gerald Kimble was convinced that he had a legal right to retain his mooring, and if the evidence couldn’t be found, he was prepared to threaten Jack with some sort of exposé. I was intrigued, my natural curiosity aroused. What was Jack covering up? Gerry had called the family ‘rotten’. Did this accusation relate to the Dimmocks’ boatyard’s notorious past, and the accident that had cost Jack his leg and Kenny his life? Was that just one of many incidents caused by Ray Dimmock’s disregard for health and safety? Or was it something else entirely? My imagination was running riot. I’d inherited a writer’s instinct for chasing a story. Could there be potential material here for some sort of novel? In her former life, Pearl would have been making notes while inspiration struck; instead, she wanted to spend the rest of the day organising a synchronised firework display and torchlight dinghy parade.

  As she whisked Pippa off to be blow-dried, I offered to drive Gerry back to the marina. He finished the last dregs of his tea and I handed him his coat. As it was still pouring, I wrapped myself up in Pearl’s mac again. There was no point ruining another jacket. Without a word, he obediently followed me out to the garage.

  There was so much I wanted to ask Gerry, but his demeanour, hunched next to me in the passenger seat, didn’t invite conversation. My cheerful opening line, ‘You’ve known the Robshaws a long time I take it, Gerry?’ elicited the barest grunt.

  After dropping Gerry on Kerridge Hard, I decided to give an afternoon at Rivermede a miss and instead headed for Portdeane Library. If Gerry wasn’t going to be forthcoming, it might be worth looking for clues elsewhere. Despite the tartan disguise, Maurice remembered me.

  ‘Back again, young lady?’ he said with a smile.

  Anyone who referred to me as ‘young’ was an immediate new friend.

  ‘I can’t keep away,’ I teased. ‘I just wondered if you know Gerald Kimble, who owns The Regatta Queen moored up at Kerridge? Did he used to work for Dimmocks, too?’

  ‘Of course I know Gerry,’ Maurice said. He drew my attention back to the photograph of the Dimmocks’ workforce in early 1970s. ‘The Kimbles are an old Kerridge family. That’ll be him there, right at the front – probably one of the last apprentices Ray Dimmock took on. He’d have been about eighteen or nineteen when this was taken.’

  Gerald Kimble had been a handsome youth. He wore the traditional overalls of the boatyard trainee.

  ‘Do you recall any other serious accidents at the old Dimmock boatyard, besides the one that killed Kenny?’ I asked, rather relishing my role of conducting investigative research.

  Maurice was very quick to dash my hopes. ‘There was nothing else on par with that,’ he admitted. �
�Of course, there were little things every now and then. A lot of the machinery was very old. Dimmocks was falling way behind with orders, losing customers left right and centre, especially towards the end before Jack Robshaw took over. I know someone who lost a couple of fingers, and another young lad fell off some scaffolding. Broke his back, if I recall.’

  ‘Was there anything that involved Gerald Kimble?’ I asked

  Maurice shook his head. ‘Not that I know of, but it wouldn’t surprise me if something was covered up. As much as I resented Robshaw closing down the construction side of the business, realistically the yard would have needed a major injection of cash to be able to come up to modern-day health and safety standards, let alone allow it to compete competitively. As I said, corners were cut and lads took risks. We all did.’

  I could easily envisage the commercial potential in an historic novel based on the workings of a family boatyard, but a catalogue of industrial accidents, which was all I had to go on so far, was hardly likely to catch the paying public’s imagination. I was reluctant to let the opportunity for a novel slip out of my grasp before it had even begun to take shape. I needed something more.

  ‘I heard a rumour Gerry has a legal right to retain his mooring on the marina at Kerridge. Do you know anything about that?’ I persisted.

  ‘The Kimbles always claimed that mooring was theirs,’ Maurice said. ‘Gerry’s father kept a houseboat there during the war years. We’ve probably got a picture of it here somewhere. I don’t know the whys and wherefores, but as I said they were an old Kerridge family. These things often get passed down father to son without any legal documentation exchanging hands.’